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BEIJING, Dec. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

To echo China's new guidelines for COVID-19 prevention and control, local

governments and hospitals across the country have been optimizing medical

services and the allocation of medical resources to face a likely surge in

patients and take better care of the elderly and most vulnerable groups.

On November 11, the country announced 20 new COVID-19 prevention and control

measures. On top of that, another 10 new measures were published on December 7

to further optimize China's COVID-19 control policy.

The measures require enhancing medical resources to prioritize COVID-19

patients.

As the latest Omicron variants spread rapidly with strong transmissibility,

some hospitals in major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, have

seen people waiting in lines for hours to enter fever clinics.

To avoid panic and a squeeze on medical resources, local governments and

hospitals are upgrading existing temporary hospitals, adding ICU beds and

better distributing medical resources.

China built temporary hospitals to receive and treat COVID-19 patients with

mild symptoms and cut off the spread of the virus. With the relaxation of

COVID-19 control and prevention measures, more temporary hospitals have been

upgraded and transformed into sub-designated city-level hospitals based on the

size of each city's population.

Jiao Yahui, general director of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the

National Health Commission, said at a press conference on December 9 that the

sub-designated hospitals would treat patients rather than just isolating them

as the mobile cabin hospitals did. She also said 10 percent of the beds in

these hospitals would be transformed into intensive care unit (ICU) beds.

"There are 138,100 ICU beds in China, of which 106,500 are in top-tier medical

institutions. On average, there are 10 ICU beds for every 100,000 people," Jiao

said.

Experts have also been providing educational information to the public about

the virus and asking asymptomatic patients and patients with mild symptoms not

to cause a run on hospitals or jam up the emergency number 120 to keep the

medical resources available for possible severe cases.

Many hospitals across the country have already begun changing their approach.

Lu Wei, a urologist with a district hospital in southwest China's Chongqing,

told CGTN that a temporary hospital that the district hospital built to

separate and treat COVID-19 patients is expected to be decommissioned soon,

along with the national policy changes.

"It was not easy for hundreds of patients and medical staff to be restricted in

the temporary hospital built in a suburb away from their families," said Lu.

"It's especially hard when they stay there for a longer time."

Lu said rather than keeping the temporary hospital open, the district hospital

will instead expand its existing fever-treating department into a designated

zone for COVID-19 patients. Doctors from other departments can also be assigned

to treat their patients in this zone, and no excessive quarantine is required.

Patients with other illnesses will no longer be required to do a COVID-19 test,

only elderly patients will be tested for the virus, and special attention will

be paid to them if the results are positive, Lu said.

Beijing has also set up new fever clinics and consulting rooms or expanded

existing ones, requiring all hospitals at the second level and higher and

qualified primary medical institutions to set up fever clinics.

In many places, including Beijing and east China's Zhejiang Province, multiple

hospitals have opened special online services for COVID-19 treatment so that

patients with symptoms can make inquiries online.

Hospitals in Shanghai have opened a special admission channel to receive

patients whose nucleic acid test or antigen test results were abnormal.

"We have set up different areas and provided different channels for different

groups of patients to ensure all the patients can receive medical care timely.

For patients who are seriously ill, they will receive treatment in time whether

or not they have negative COVID-19 test results," Ma Xin, deputy president of

the Huashan Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, told Shanghai Media Group.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-13/-New-Approaches-Hospitals-gear-up-to-prioritize-COVID-19-patients-1fJokZulTY4/index.html

Source CGTN